What can you tell us about SriLankan Airlines fleet of aircraft?

We have ten wide-body and ten narrow body aircraft in our fleet. It is likely that Mihin Air will become a part of SriLankan Airlines. We will have a couple of aircraft from Mihin as well. We should have about 22-23 aircraft starting from the next couple of months under SriLankan Airlines, which means that we will be flying some of the Mihin Air routes such as Dhaka, Seychelles and some cities in India.

You mentioned that Mihin Air and SriLankan will merge. How will this work?
Mihin Air was formed five years ago for various reasons other than commercial requirements. It is a good airline, but the problem is, you cannot run an airline with four planes. That is not possible. Most of the budget carriers in the world have 60 - 100 planes. Unless you have that size of a fleet, you can't make it a success. They have developed some markets which are exceptionally good; one of which is Dhaka and some of the Indian cities like Varanasi and Buddhagaya. After the merger SriLankan will fly those routes, no one is going to miss out on that. It will not be budget but we will be sensitive to the customer's requirements and these destinations will be run at a different price point. It is the only sensible thing to do.

At the moment SriLankan is managing Mihin Air as well. Everything is separate and once the two airlines get together it will be more cost effective and efficient. That is the plan where the routes are concerned and we will merge some of the routes in September-October.

The staff, are no doubt concerned about their future and decisions will be made together with the Government on these matters. In the end we will have a well managed national carrier which must operate on their own as the Government cannot continue to subsidise the airlines.

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